breaking free

"She was an odd duck, she knew that. She didn't smile at the right times, she said yes when she was supposed to say no, she always realized too late when somebody was trying to be funny. Someone asked a question, she answered plainly. She had no idea what else to do. And as people recoiled, she always thought the same thing. No one knew her. She didn't match. What was inside her was not what people saw."

"She wasn't a type. She was herself. Square peg, all right. Cranky. Awkward. Confused, of course. But not completely ill-suited to the world, not so dominated by these questions that they took over everything else. She had her secrets. Everybody did. Stuff swirled around inside her, undetermined, like the dust in the cosmos that wasn't yet a comet or a planet or a star. But who wasn't like that. Everybody."

that's how Scott Turow describes one of his characters in his book Personal Injuries. that's how i might describe myself.

and yet - a strange and wonderful change is beginning to occur.

i am being set free.

i am coming into myself.

for the first time i'm happy to be exactly where i am right now. i know who i am and where i'm going. and i'm gaining competence in a practical skill that i'm going to be able to use to accomplish something. and it just so happens that this practical skill is also helping me find the words to say to express who i am on the inside. who will i be in 10 years?